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Moving to this school district has been wonderful for many reasons. I have been very happy with the way my children are learning here. There is, however, one thing I have a problem with...
Stickers. Sounds ridiculous right?
The schools let parents put money into their children's lunch accounts. The children are given a number and when they buy lunch, they can check out using that number. It pulls money out of the account. When it gets down to a certain number, the emails start coming: Replenish your child's lunch account. And then when it gets down a little further, the stickers come home... ON MY CHILD!
The lunch people put a big red sticker on my child's shirt that basically screams out "HEY! You need to send in more money!! You're broke!" How is that protecting our privacy? And how rude is that? Let's stick big, red stickers on the kids who need to send in more money! Let the whole school know.
There are other stickers too, thankfully, my children don't need to wear them much. These consist of different transportation issues... being picked up early, transportation change like going on a different bus. Again, there's a privacy issue here. Not only that, but a safety issue. I assume that everyone who works in the school has been cleared to be there, but you never know. I certainly do not want everyone in the school knowing that my child is walking home that day or taking a different bus.
Those are the ones I have issues with. There is another one that says "Don't forget money for the school store tomorrow".
Not only are these stickers a violation of our privacy, but if put on certain decorations (on t-shirts), they will damage them.
I don't see how they can get away with this...
I had to edit this to add a thought. Could you imagine going to the grocery store and using your debit card, only to have the cashier place a sticker on your shirt because your account was getting low?
I find it ironic that I'm blogging about something that's probably nothing after my last post. But, it's something that's on my mind and the best medicine for it is to express my feelings.
JJ has been complaining of not feeling good lately. She goes to the nurse at school, she complains here at home, and when my she goes out on bike rides with dad, she cries the whole time that her legs hurt.
At first, I thought that this was just an excuse to get out of going. But, it's BIKE RIDING, not a punishment. Could she be just wanting attention? Middle child syndrome? Or is it something that should be looked into? How am I supposed to tell? It's frustrating. I go back and forth in my head trying to figure out if it's attention she wants or if it's something more serious... and from there my mind wanders. Could it be Juvenile Arthritis? Could it be Leukemia?
Bells had her 4 month check-up today (everything was fine). I brought up what was going on with JJ and asked the doctor her opinion. She said it could be a ploy for attention, but the only way to know for sure is to do some blood work. I absolutely hate putting her through that. Maybe when I mention it to her, she will miraculously get better!
Being someone who does a good amount of worrying, I hear "wait and see" enough. I worry. I try not to. I try to think positively, but as a parent in today's scary world, I worry more than I'd like.
When I was diagnosed with ADHD, they also diagnosed me with mild OCD. It is very mild, but it is there. I have to check the doors, make sure they're locked, but I don't have a set amount of times I need to do this. I check the alarm to make sure it's on. I check the gate to make sure it's closed. I also need to have the tags in the back or at the bottom of whatever it is that it's on. Pillowcases go certain ways. And I hate it when a light switch is considered OFF in the UP position. UGH!
I've been noticing lately that Boo, my 9 year old, seems to worry a lot. I'm not sure how much is a normal amount of worrying. I asked my husband and he didn't seem concerned, but I asked him to listen to what she's saying and let me know if he thinks she's getting worse at some point. I don't remember my older child going through this stage. Maybe she skipped it? Maybe it was short? Maybe Boo just worries more.
Boo doesn't like parking garages. If we go in one, she wants to go to the top, so the garage doesn't collapse on top of us. She is always asking if I remembered to let the dogs inside. When I ask her why, she tells me she's afraid they're going to get hurt. When I ask who is going to hurt them in our fenced in backyard, she says someone might jump the fence. She asks if I remembered to lock the doors or turn on the alarm at night or when we're leaving the house.
When there is a thunderstorm, she has to stay close by us. She asks if lightning will come through the windows or if it'll turn into a twister. Her bed is in the middle of her room and she sleeps as far away from the window in her bed that she can. She moves her pillow all the way to the side nearest the wall and sleeps on that side of her single bed. She has even moved her favorite animals or dolls to that side of the room so nothing crashes in through the window and "gets them".
It's not all the time, but I have been noticing it more and more. I just don't know how worried I should be about her worrying :) I certainly don't want to put her on any medications, but I don't want her to get worse either. As of right now, it's not interfering with her school work or life, so I think we're okay and I hope it's just a stage. We'll wait and see...
I'm sitting on my bed - Indian style - with Bells on my lap, she's sleeping. I sit back against my pillows and just watch her. Her face twitches a little, she smiles and then her mouth forms this perfect little o. Tears spring to my eyes as I etch this moment into my heart. I do not want to forget this.
As I watch, her body jumps and she opens her eyes. For a split second, she looks like she might cry. But, then she catches my eye and her body relaxes. Then ever so slowly, so gracefully, her eyes close... and open - to check, to make sure that I'm right there - and then close again.
We all have our favorite experts, especially when it comes to parenting. A few of my friends like this Dr. John Rosemond guy. I hadn't heard of him, so I googled him. The first few things I saw sounded promising. I read that he had many thoughts when it came to potty training and since that is what I need most right now, I wanted to read more. What I read shocked me!
The first thing I read was about his "Naked and $75" approach. I am all for having my little ones run around naked and pay for the carpet cleaning later, but to go to the extremes he recommends if that little one doesn't potty train is absurd.
He says, "If one of your kids refuses to use the toilet despite being old enough to do so, get rid of all diapers and training pants and have your child wear only thin cotton underpants and a t-shirt. Then have your child drink water often and instruct them to go to the bathroom whenever necessary. If your child has any accidents, send him or her to his room for the rest of the day and allow him or her to come out only to use the bathroom." The part in bold is the part I have a problem with. Sending a 3 year old to their room for that long is ridiculous!
I continued my research into this guy and found my next problem with him... To a mom of a four year old who refused to do a BM in the toilet, he gave the following advice:
"Every day, right after your son eats a high fiber breakfast, gate him in the bathroom, naked from the waist down and tell him his doctor said he has to stay there until he poops in the potty."
Seriously? Gate them in the bathroom until they poop?! Are they dogs? I had to stop reading there. I was disturbed and didn't want to think of actual parents out there doing this to their children. He was not an expert I wanted to be associated with. I'm not even sure what kind of expert he thinks he is.
I have a lot of problems potty training Nanoo, but I would never send her to her room for the rest of the day or gate her in the bathroom. I'll go back to just waiting it out, thankyouverymuch.
My husband often asks when I'm going to put the baby down. I tell him "Never". When he asks why, I tell him simply, "I'm afraid she'll grow the second I let go."
That is the question.
My loving and supportive husband thinks that I should self publish on Kindle. Me? Not so sure. I know I write well - and by that I mean I have good stories - but I'm not the best with grammar and punctuation. So, to bypass the whole agent, editor, and publisher thing is well... scary. Can I edit my books well enough that there aren't a ton of mistakes? And if 5 agents weren't intrigued by my queries, would anybody want to read the whole thing?
And WHO uses a Kindle??? I seriously don't know anybody who does. I have never seen one in real life. Also, my novels are young adult, so my other worry is that most young adults don't have Kindles or credit cards to download to their Kindle. Am I mistaken?
I am scared, I have no problem admitting that. It's one thing to send a chapter or two to an agent and they say "no thanks". But, to send your entire book to the world and have the entire world not be interested, that's FAILURE!
